(Brussels 1564–1638 Antwerp)
Boerenvreughd: Fight of the Peasants against the Spaniards - Allegory of the Eighty Years War,
oil on panel, 45 x 66.2 cm, framed

Provenance:
Collection Walter Altschul, New York (1971);
Private collection, New York

We are grateful to Klaus Ertz for confirming the authenticity of the present painting after examining it in the original. A certificate is available (January 2017).

Klaus Ertz writes: “The present painting is in very good condition. It gives a brilliant and fresh impression and is executed in the glazing technique typical of Flemish painting. In a final step, white highlights have been applied to the top layer (primarily recognisable in the leaves of the trees in the background and in the women’s white aprons and headscarves) […]. Flemish peasants, armed with spears, spits, and fire irons, are chasing away Spanish soldiers from a house that has been looted by them. The farmhouse takes up one third of the right section and the entire height of the composition. In its interior, a peasant woman in a red skirt lifts a pair of fire tongs up high above her head, and the peasant behind her has a two-pronged pitchfork ready to attack the Spanish officer, who, in a plumed hat and gaudy uniform and with a beseeching expression on his face while pleadingly raising his folded hands, comes across as a ridiculous figure. In the very foreground, a younger couple, helped by a barking, long-haired red and white dog, is driving two Spanish soldiers in front of them who seek to escape in a panic. The sutler, dressed in a precious robe with a red bodice and ruff, holds a doll under her arm, probably part of the loot from the farmhouse. The gallant soldier in a red and brown uniform behind her, whose dagger identifies him as a Spaniard, makes a wild escape, his arms fluttering anxiously. The young country woman in a red skirt, white apron, light-brown jacket, and white bonnet carries a lance in both of her hands, its long metal tip directed upwards towards the left, prepared to thrust at the fugitives should they resist […]. A tranquil and serene village landscape in bright beige and green tones forms the backdrop of this violent scene. Tiny figures appear underneath a row of trees lining the path that diagonally leads into the background towards the left, with a pink house appearing behind the trees on the right […]. The present theme is very unusual for Pieter the Younger. As it is the only composition by him known to date showing peasants driving soldiers away from their house, it is exceptional and unique in the artist’s oeuvre. The artist hardly treated any themes he did not vary in subsequent versions.”

The thematic pair of the pleasures and miseries of peasant life was primarily dealt with by David Vinckboons, such as in his painting from around 1609 in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. Pieter Brueghel II must have known these works, for the present painting indeed reflects Vinckboons’s style, albeit with idiosyncratic variations. The misery of the peasants caused by the raging Spanish troops during the Eighty Years’ War was also described by Marten van Cleve, who, however, did not treat the pleasant aspects of country life.

In order to corroborate his attribution of the present painting to Pieter Brueghel II and its date of execution, Ertz refers to the following works by the artist:

1) The Wedding Dance, (dated 1624, Gallery Johnny van Haeften, London, 1995);
2) Assault of a Peasant Couple (after 1616, Universitets Konstsamling, Stockholm);
3) Peasants Brawling over a Game of Cards (dated 1619, Musée Fabre, Montpellier)

Ertz: “Although these examples by Pieter the Younger date from after 1616, I am of the opinion that the painting to be assessed here, due to its thematic closeness to the work of Vinckboons, who executed his first paintings as early as the 1610s, was made before 1616. Moreover, this scene of a fight also breathes the spirit of the artist’s father, Pieter Brueghel the Elder: the foreground has been converted into a stage here on which people wage their fights. The village landscape in the background has been added to accompany the front stage as an illusionary space.” Ertz dates the painting into the period before 1616.